the Venus of the hardsell
by bellmare
Summary: we'll paint them red, those things she said. — pre-canon; Junko/Mukuro.


**Notes; spoilers and incest. Also some eye horror and Mukuro wistfully thinking about breaking fingers, amongst other things**.

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The saddest thing about being related to Junko is that it's like constantly being compared to something beautiful and flawless and perfect, to having to live up to the impossible standards of someone who has the world in the palm of her hand. The problem is that Junko's like one of those beautiful, flawless, perfect apples on the outside, sweet and rosy and smooth but inside there's nothing but rot and worms, nestling within the poisoned fruit of Eris just waiting to be tossed into the midst of a world of empty hopes and dreams.

"Stay still," Junko says; she doesn't bother with singsong, not today. Her fingers tighten around Mukuro's chin, red-painted nails digging into her jaw - real ones, not like Mukuro's, because everything about Junko is real, so very real and Mukuro's long resigned herself to be the fake, the disposable one. "God, it's so hard when you're nothing like me, it's like building something from scratch. Well, whatever." Her voice is dismissive now but Mukuro doesn't have it in her to take offense, not any more. "I'll make a masterpiece out of you yet. Look down."

Mukuro stares down at her hands instead, flexes her fingers experimentally, admiring the false nails. She wrinkles her nose at the smell of the drying polish, the harsh, ethanoate stink hanging in the air. Red's not really her colour, she thinks, but maybe it's because she's never seen it on herself before. Red's the colour of blood, the colour of violence and murder and the battlefield. These nails are ridiculous and long and impractical - but it suits Junko, because that's what her sister is - whimsical and dangerous and wild in her fancies.

She doesn't like this, doesn't like the metamorphosis from Mukuro Ikusaba into Junko Enoshima. The eyeliner feels oily across her lids, the mascara heavy on her lashes. Junko scatters an array of bottles before her, a treasure trove of cosmetics spilling across the bedspread.

"Eyeshadow first," she says like it's the Ten Commandments, like it matters which order she goes in - and if she's going to be Junko, of course it does. "Then liner and finally mascara. Don't use too much, and zigzag the wand a little so it doesn't clump. You don't want to look like a half-baked tart of a model, do you?" She titters at her own wordplay. "God, you need everything I can throw at you to liven up those dull, empty eyes of those. The eyes of a _killer_," she actually purrs, brushing her thumb over Mukuro's cheeks just under her eyes. "They're sooo cold and sooo dead because of aaaall the things you've done, and aaaall the horrible things you've seen, it's so _sad _and _terrible_, isn't it?"

"Yes," Mukuro says, resisting the urge to pull away. It's the discomfort of feeling Junko's thumbs near the corners of her eyes, the knowledge that a slip of the hand makes a very small difference between having eyes and having them gouged out, popped clear out of their sockets. _I'm going to have to do something about those dead fish eyes of yours, one of these days,_ Junko had said before. It sounded like a joke, then, the way she'd laughed, sly and mischievous, staring into Mukuro's eyes all the while. _Should I put them out and replace them with something nicer, something livelier?_

(They settled on contacts, something to liven the dull grey-green of her eyes. _Like river sludge, ugh,_ _how gross, _Junko said earlier, _nothing like the windows to your soul at all, not that you have one, of course, ooh, I'm just pulling your leg_. Mukuro submitted because for Junko, she always submits and now she's staring at a stranger in the mirror with Junko's eyes and her face, thin-lipped and brooding.)

Mukuro's used to fighting, to taking and not giving but with Junko, with Junko's it's different because it's _Junko_, because her orders are absolute and her words are the law. If anyone else spoke to her like that, she wouldn't have to think - she knows about pain and how to inflict it, just like she knows how well a good liver punch can shock a body into submission, or jabbing the heel of her hand upwards into the nose will drive shattered cartilage into the brain. She knows how to break fingers, one by one, bone by bone and joint by joint - but this is Junko, Junko's the one that's talking and there's little Mukuro can do but swallow her pride.

"... are you even listening," Junko's saying as slides her left hand down Mukuro's cheekbone, steadying her face as she applies sickly-sweet lipgloss. Mukuro blinks, tightening her jaw as Junko's thumb skims the edges of her lips. Junko runs her tongue over her teeth, admiring her handiwork, then leans over and kisses her slowly, smearing her lipgloss. It's strawberry today, pretty-pastel and shiny. "You'd better be listening," she says when she pulls away and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Mukuro licks her lips on instinct, grimaces at the waxy, artificial tang of saccharine berries.

"Aw, you know what, it'll be such a shame to cover up those freckles, you're so _cute_ with them but y'know what, _cute_ isn't the same as _fuckin' gorgeous_ and they'll have to go. Make sure you use concealer, okay, and do the same for your tattoo."

Her right thumb's running circles over Mukuro's wristbone, edging towards the back of her hand and tracing the outline of the wolf. "Even if you stepped out of your skin," she says softly, "you'd never be me and that's so sad. So, so sad."

Junko, she thinks, is decidedly in love with herself - that's the only explanation she has as to why Junko's sliding her hands up her short skirt, to Junko's knee slipping between her thighs; the only explanation she has to Junko's hands tangled in the fibres of a strawberry-blond wig, to Junko's hand under her shirt and splaying on her stomach. Junko doesn't love Mukuro as much as she loves herself, because when they kiss it's like Junko's not looking at her but through her, thinking of someone else who isn't such a disappointment, perhaps. Mukuro wants, more than anything, to faster her top two buttons, to take off the stupid push-up bra so she isn't spilling out of her stupid tight shirt but, fuck, if it's what Junko wants then so be it, she's too tired to argue.

She's only defied Junko once before but Junko always knows how to reel her back in, how to plant doubt beneath her skin and sow fear into her heart.

If Mukuro knows how to maim and wound the body, well, then, Junko knows all-too-well how to crush the heart and break the mind. They make a fine pair, she thinks, two sides of the same coin.

"Something funny?" Junko asks, sweet and guileless into her ear. Her touch is something between a slap and a pat - a warning, a mocking prelude to something else. "Your wolf smile has no business being on my face. What're you going to do, crack my bones and eat me up? Are you going to cut my heart out with some unplanned treachery and make me cry?"

"No," Mukuro says and her voice sounds faint and faraway. She never cries but of course Junko does because Junko knows how to play her, knows how to weep crocodile tears and laugh false hyena laughs, high and cruel. "No, never."

"Good," Junko says, placated. "I've invested so much time and effort into loving you and putting my heart into you, you don't want your darling little sister's affections to go to waste now, do you?"

"No," Mukuro repeats instinctively. Junko's the only one for her, she tells herself, over and over. Junko's the only one who'll ever care for her. It has to be the truth because she's been telling herself that for years, anyway.


End file.
